


Cyclone

by luvsanime02



Series: Delete Winter [17]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Drug Addiction, Gen, Language, Purging, Relapsing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3881110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvsanime02/pseuds/luvsanime02
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren's handling it just fine - he's perfectly in control - except he's really not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cyclone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



**Disclaimer:** I don’t own Shingeki no Kyojin. That honor belongs to Isayama-sensei. I’m making no profit off of this fic.

########

 **Cyclone** by luvsanime02

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Eren lets the tiny, purple pill dissolve on his tongue, and closes his eyes as he waits for it to take effect. He still doesn’t know the name of this drug, the one that he’d been forced to take almost a year ago but now uses voluntarily. What he does know is that the feeling when it hits his brain every time is just the same as he remembers.

This isn’t like before, though. Eren’s being so careful now. He knows how easy it is to get addicted to drugs, to control someone else through them. He has no desire to be controlled. He just takes one every now and then to feel happy. And only when he’s sad, when depressing thoughts are pressing at him from all sides and he thinks he’ll go crazy.

So really, it isn’t so bad that occasionally Eren indulges. He’s always careful to make sure Mikasa and Levi are out when the initial high hits, and he hides the bottle in his school backpack. There aren’t even that many pills missing from it. Really, he’s been doing fine lately.

“What are you doing?”

Eren should feel alarmed. No one’s supposed to be home. He tries to open his eyes and make up some excuse, but his eyelids feel heavy. Finally, he manages to open them just a sliver.

Mikasa is standing frozen in the doorway to their room. He didn’t even hear her open the door, or come into the apartment. Eren lets his eyes fall shut again to block out the disappointment and sadness in hers. Mikasa isn’t allowed to be sad.

A distant feeling on his cheek makes him open them again, and Mikasa is standing much closer now, her hand still raised. She must have slapped him. He’s glad that it didn’t hurt this time as much as it usually does.

“Eren.” Her voice is hard now, angry. His body wants to curl up into a ball in response, but he’s hitting the high now and his legs won’t move. Everything feels so wonderful. “ _What are you doing?”_

He lets his head fall back and stares up at the ceiling. Shapes are beginning to form there, odd pictures drawing and erasing themselves like an etch-a-sketch. Mikasa should look at them. They’re neat.

Suddenly, the ceiling is moving above him. Eren sucks in his breath and watches in wonder as the bedroom ceiling slowly moves away and becomes the one from the hallway. Then the bathroom. Then the ceiling isn’t there at all, but the wall. There’s someone’s harsh breathing in his ears. Eren has just enough time to wonder why this all feels faintly familiar in the back of his mind before his mouth is opened and something is shoved past his teeth and tongue.

He chokes, tries to turn his head away, but still doesn’t have enough control over his body. Instead, he starts coughing, and then his head is leaning over the toilet as he throws up.

After a few minutes, Eren can breathe again, and realizes that his hands are grasping the edges of the bowl. Slowly, his head comes up and he starts falling over, but something catches him. When he looks at his shoulder he sees a hand there, smaller than his own, almost delicate-looking. He follows that to a covered arm, and then up to a face. It’s Mikasa. Her mouth is opening and closing, but he can’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears. She leaves after a moment and comes back with a glass of water, which he drinks eagerly. She has to hold the cup to his lips, since his hands don’t seem to want to let go of the toilet. Suddenly, he wants them to, and tries harder to move them.

“Is that better?” Mikasa asks him. Eren nods. It is a bit. His throat no longer hurts and his eyes have stopped watering. They sit there in silence for a little while, Eren still slumped over the toilet and Mikasa kneeling beside him.

Eventually, Eren feels the initial buzz wearing off. He gestures wordlessly for more water, and silently Mikasa gets some. After he’s done swallowing, she takes back the glass, looks him hard in the eyes, and slaps him across the face.

It _hurts._

Eren’s his vision actually blacks out around the edges, and his head whips sideways. Fuck. She always did know how to hit someone forcefully.

“Did you feel it that time?” she asks him. “It looked like you did.”

“Yeah,” Eren answers her, rubbing his cheek. Slowly, his motor functions are coming back to him. It’s also slowly sinking in that Mikasa is _here,_ that she knows now, and the hand rubbing his stinging cheek balls into a fist. Damn it.

“Why are you home?” he asks numbly.

Mikasa is silent for a few minutes. “I suppose you’ve been timing it carefully, huh.” It’s not a question. “I stormed out of therapy today.”

“Why?” he questions, wondering if he should be worried that something had happened to her.

Mikasa shrugs. “I didn’t feel like it today.” There’s another silence. “You’re going to flush those pills,” she says then. It’s not even a command, but nevertheless her voice isn’t something that Eren can ever bring himself to disobey. Still.

“Can you do it?” he whispers. “I-” _don’t know if I can,_ he finishes silently.

She pauses beside him, but then Eren hears her getting up and walking out of the room. She comes back a minute later and sits next to him again. “Watch.” This is an order, and Eren does, forces himself not to look away as Mikasa dumps all the pills into the toilet water and then flushes.

Somehow, after that, they end up leaving the bathroom and falling onto Levi’s bed. He’s not here, but the room still feels like his presence, a protective shield from the rest of the world, and they huddle there together.

“I’m sorry,” he says, feeling helpless even with the drug still swimming through his system. He clings to Mikasa tighter, until he is encased within her arms.

“I know you are,” she replies, and holds him close. They lie like that, just breathing, for what feels like hours before they hear movement in the apartment.

After a minute, the door swings open even more, and Eren sees Levi standing there staring at them. He doesn’t say anything, just watches them for a minute before he walks in and climbs onto the bed on the other side of Eren, a solid presence at his back. Mikasa starts crying silently, and Eren feels his own tears falling as the warmth of the two bodies surrounding him seeps into his own.


End file.
